Wasted Time
by MACRA
Summary: No parent wants to see their children make the same mistakes they did. Hiroshi Sato has a chance to do something about that.
"You seem to be having a hard time concentrating on the game." Asami looked up from the Pai Sho board at her father. There was a look of concern in his eyes. "Is there anything bothering you?" he continued.

She looked back down at the board, trying to concentrate on her next move. "I guess you've probably heard the news from the Earth Kingdom. I'm just worried about what's going on." She made a move that she hoped was somewhat sensible. He was right; she couldn't really concentrate today. She didn't look up. She wasn't ready to meet his eyes.

"Ah," he responded mildly. "Pardon me for prying. I thought perhaps it might have been something… more personal." He set down a tile of his own.

 _He'll let me get away with that answer,_ she realized, _and it will break his heart that I don't trust him._ She sat still for a long moment, not really seeing the board. "I've fallen in love," she said at last. Finally, she looked at him.

He settled his glasses on his nose thoughtfully. "That's usually considered a good thing."

"I don't think it's going to work out. It's… complicated."

"Love very often is. Is it something you can talk about?" When she didn't answer, he continued more hesitantly. "I understand if there are some things you feel you can't talk to me about. For what it is worth, I am not going to get upset if you tell me he's a bender."

A wry smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "More than just a bender." She made a decision. She took a deep breath and sat straighter, holding his eye. "It's Korra." Her father's eyes widened. He took off his spectacles and began to polish them, a technique Asami well recognized as his method of buying time. The expression on his face as he did so, however, was not one she had expected. "You look…pleased."

He put his glasses back on. "I won't pretend that I expected your answer, or that it won't take considerable getting used to. But I _am_ pleased that you know your own heart. And that you value the truth enough to tell me in spite of past experience." A mischievous gleam rose in his eyes. "Besides, I was bracing for you to say it was Bolin."

Asami stared at him for a moment. Then she burst out laughing. She covered her mouth with both hands. "That's not really fair to Bo," she said, but then giggled a bit more.

Her father smiled. "I know. He's a good hearted young man and a good friend to you. And I'm sure he has matured a lot in the past three years."

"Well, maybe not a _lot_ …" She giggled again.

"You know," her father said in a more serious tone, "I don't know the Avatar well. But if you are worried about what she will think, she never struck me as one that would be excessively concerned with convention."

"It's not that," she said. "Well, not just that. Korra's my friend. My best friend. I'm worried… I don't want to lose what I have with her by getting greedy."

Her father gave a laugh that sounded like it had more pain than humor in it. "Ah. That one. Yes, that one I know quite well."

He crossed his arms and looked down at the board, but something in his expression made Asami guess he wasn't really seeing it. "I don't really remember meeting your mother," he said. "It wasn't a love at first sight kind of relationship. We were just part of the same circle. We were two people who shared mutual friends and didn't have much else in common.

"Over time, we got to know each other better and we became friends in our own right. People came and went from our circle, but we grew closer. I think we probably _were_ best friends. It's just that at that time it wasn't done for a man and a woman to describe themselves that way." He gave a snort. Asami smiled in understanding. She didn't interrupt.

"She was actually engaged to another man for a while. I didn't like him. Maybe I was already in love and didn't know it. On the other hand, he truly was a heel. Anyway, when she broke off the engagement with him, what I remember thinking was that I hoped she would find someone worthy of her. It wasn't for another few months that I realized I wanted to be that someone." He frowned.

"What happened?" Asami asked.

"I wasn't sure that I _was_ worthy. And like you, I feared losing what I already had. My efforts to not give myself away were very nearly disastrous. Instead of keeping things as they were, I started to distance myself. Not on purpose. I just couldn't judge it properly. There wasn't a tidy line where friendship left off and love began. I almost drove her away completely by trying to keep her friendship."

"What did you do?" Of course Asami knew that things must have worked out, but at that moment she couldn't help feeling anxious on her father's behalf.

"It was what your Mother did," he said. A fond smile rose on his face. "Fortunately for all of us, she was both braver and wiser than I. She wasn't prepared to lose her friend without a fight. So she confronted me, demanded to know why I was pushing her away.

"I might still not have had the wit to tell her if she hadn't been partly afraid that _she_ had done something to upset me. So I told her everything. She looked so annoyed. I can still hear her. 'You idiot. You've been making us both miserable because of something that should be happy?' And then, she kissed me."

Asami leaned her head on her hand, smiling. "You never told me that story before."

"No. There's a lot I should have told you about your mother and me that I haven't. It's past time to start correcting that." He cleared his throat and looked aside awkwardly. "I of course can't promise that you'll have a happy ending. But if she's worthy of your love, I can't believe that the truth will lose you her friendship."

At the door of the visiting room, the guard coughed apologetically. Asami looked up at the clock. The man had already let them go over the allotted time. She sighed and started to clear the game away. "I'll… think about it. It's not really a good time to lay another thing on her shoulders."

Her father got slowly to his feet. "It occurs to me that everything that I truly regret carries with it some element of wasted time. The things that I have done that have kept me away from what truly matters in my life." He looked down and laid his hand on the Pai Sho board. "This… is a reprieve from the consequences of the last and worst of my sins. But I have wasted so much time in my life before things even came to this." His gesture encompassed the prison walls. He looked at her. "Please, don't wait too long."

Asami got up and hugged her father fiercely. "Thank you," she said.

As he walked to the door of the visiting room, he looked back to give her a smile and a wave. In that moment, she saw the man she had known as a child, before hate had made him lose his way. The man from before three wasted years.

"I promise," she whispered. "I'll find a way to tell her. I'll make the time. For your sake and Mother's."


End file.
